


take my hand (and home we'll go)

by harlequin421



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 04:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6224035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harlequin421/pseuds/harlequin421
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye doesn't have a home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take my hand (and home we'll go)

**Author's Note:**

> this is an AU where Skye is an alien that can fly and Jemma is an ex astronaut that owns a coffee shop

Skye doesn’t have a home.

On the nights when Skye flies high and fast, and soars over tree tops and sees her glowing reflection in the rivers and ponds she’ll remember things in flashes of sights and sounds and smells that don’t make any sense because she’s flown all over this earth and she’s never seen anything like what she sees when she almost goes supernova and has to fly into the water to stop herself from exploding.

She wanders from town to town too strange to stay in any one place without raising any suspicions and she doesn’t have any reason to believe that this new town is going to be any different.

She doesn’t understand why they call this small town Star Dust until her first night there when she opens her eyes after watching the sun set.

What she sees makes her gasp in awe.

It’s not just that the stars that shine brightly and plentiful in the sky, but also the fire flies are thick and heavy in the air making everything glow eerily. It makes Skye feel like if she’s amongst the stars.

She spends that entire first night soaring along side the fireflies a brighter spot among them, but not bright enough to attract any other unwanted attention.

She spends the entire night out there, and is lying so still on the ground among the grass that dew drops collect across her skin as the sun starts rising.

Skye gets up when her body reminds her that she needs to eat especially after spending most of the night flying.

She makes her way back into the town, maybe she can find someplace that will be willing to let her work to pay for her food.

She walks down the sidewalk as the early birds wake up.

She can see several diners that say they’re open twenty four hours and are probably there for the tourists benefits.

Skye knows it would be easy to get some food at any one of them, but her feet take her down another path to a small café nestled between a book store and a technology store.

Skye walks towards it even though there are no lights on, and it doesn’t even look open.

When she pushes the door, it opens easily enough, and a bell chimes letting anyone inside know someone has just walked in.

“Trip is that you? I told you I didn’t need any help, oh,” the voice stops speaking as soon as the person looks up and notices that Skye is a complete stranger. “Hello,” the young woman says smiling gently after she takes in Skye’s bare feet and dirty damp clothes. “Can I help you?”

“I’m hungry,” Skye states truthfully because she’s learned that it’s better to state exactly what your purpose is so that no one gets confused or scared. “And while I don’t have any money I can help with whatever you need.”

The young woman just looks at her really seriously for a second before she smiles again “You’re lucky it’s Friday and I could use some help, but first…”

She holds out her hand, “I’m Jemma.”

Skye looks at her hand suspiciously but she’s seen others do this from time to time. She puts her hand into Jemma’s.

Her skin is soft and cool against Skye’s It’s a sensation that Skye has never experienced. Or she thinks she’s never experienced.

“My name is Skye,” she says as Jemma squeezes her hand briefly before letting go.

“Good to meet you Skye,” Jemma says and this time her smile seems different, and it makes Skye feel like she flew too close to the edge of the sky and ran out of oxygen. “Come on let’s get you something to eat.”

Jemma, she learns is not only pretty but also kind. She gives Skye pastries and coffee and juice when Skye declines the coffee. She makes Skye take a shower and gives her clothing to wear. She asks Skye about her home, and looks really sad when Skye tells her honestly that she doesn’t have a home.

She teaches Skye how to take the orders, and tells her that she’s doing a good job even when Skye gets the orders wrong.

She bites her bottom lip when Skye gets something right and smiles at her in that way that makes Skye want to float off the surface of the planet, but she keeps her feet solidly on the ground afraid that maybe Jemma will be like all the others who catch a glimpse of the thing that makes her too strange to actually be human.

The small café is not terribly busy, and Jemma enthralls her with stories of her days at someplace called Nasa where she learned to fly a space ship. The way she talks about flying makes Skye’s palms itch.

_I can take you up to the stars again if you wish it_ , Skye doesn’t say out loud because this has got to be too fast.

She’s observed the courtship rituals, and you don’t feel things with this intensity until after you get to know a person. But it’s like the same thing that brought her to Jemma’s café wants her to stay there indefinitely, and Skye’s never felt anything like this before.

The way that Jemma looks at her makes her feel like if maybe those myths of people falling in love at first sight aren’t just myths. The way that Jemma smiles at her makes her want to stay. The way that Jemma takes her hand and squeezes it right before going back to bake more pastries makes Skye feel that maybe if she showed her Jemma wouldn’t be afraid.

She’s lost in her own thoughts, and doesn’t notice that Jemma is done for the day until there is a hand in front of her face.

Skye looks up into Jemma’s worried eyes and places her hand in hers letting Jemma tug her to her feet.

She smiles a little uncertainly at Skye and squeezes their fingers together. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Skye looks at her and then out the window to see that the sun was setting again.

“I want to show you something,” Skye says decidedly.

Before Jemma can ask what, before Skye can change her mind, she’s dragging them both out of the door.

The bell jingles, and Skye hears someone calling out to Jemma, but Jemma doesn’t stop running behind her.

Skye smiles and runs faster.

Jemma’s fingers slide out of her hand but she’s right there next to Skye matching her stride. She looks over to her and lets out a breathless laugh.

“Where are we going?” she says sounding out of breath.

Skye just shakes her head and runs even faster.

She steps into warm dry grass her bare feet digging into the dirt. Jemma follows right behind her not even hesitating when Skye heads into the trees and breaks away from the marked path.

Skye skids to a stop right before the drop of the cliff and Jemma stumbles into her. Skye doesn’t let their momentum take them over, and Jemma laughs breathlessly body pressed against Skye’s arms around her shoulders.

“If we’re here for the stars and fireflies, I hate to break it to you but I’ve seen it all already.”

Skye bites her lip and pushes Jemma back slightly.

Jemma steps back letting her arms fall to her sides, but she doesn’t stop smiling.

“That’s not what I want to show you,” Skye says.

She turns back to the setting sun, and raises her arms on either side of her into the air. She spreads her fingers out and feels the warmth of the sun against her skin.

She’s wearing more clothes than she usually does, but it’s not going to matter. It’s not like if this power actually comes from the sun. It comes from within her. The sun just makes her feel happy, and seeing it set is like saying goodbye to a friend.

She opens her eyes and lets her arms fall back down.

She turns back to Jemma who is just looking at her with wide dark eyes, and her lips are spit slick and shiny, and Skye feels that swooping feeling in her stomach and she wants to be closer, and at the same time far away.

Skye feels her breath catch in her chest, and she steps back.

“Skye wait!” Jemma says stepping forward eyes wide in fear.

Skye falls before any other words are spoken.

She lets herself sink down before she raises her hands into the air and feels the warmth expanding from her chest outward until she feels covered with it Her descent slows and she propels herself upwards whooping as she goes fast and passes Jemma where she’s looking down over the edge of the cliff.

She swoops back down, and Jemma scrambles away in a way that Skye can understand given the fact that she’s covered in flames.

Skye’s feet barely touch the floor, but the flames extinguish but she still feels warm all over.

“You can fly,” Jemma states, and she sounds awed and scared all at the same time.

Skye nods her head and bites her lip not wanting to babble nonstop about waking up all alone with no memories and no ideas where she was at. She’s still has no memories or any idea where she actually is, but she knows without a doubt that everything has been leading her to this exact moment.

She holds out her hand, and Jemma just looks at it for a long moment before she’s sliding her hand into Skye’s, and her cool fingers grab on to Skye’s, and Skye knows that she’s feeling the warmth that Skye feels.

Skye barely even has to propel them into the air and they’re both flying upwards.

Jemma screams and wraps her arms around Skye immediately hanging on for dear life. Skye laughs. “Don’t worry, you’re not going to fall.”

Jemma doesn’t let go of Skye but she lifts her head up from where she’d hid it against Skye’s shoulder.

She pulls back slowly, and Skye bites her lip so that she doesn’t laugh when she sees that her eyes are still closed.

Jemma’s fingers tighten where she has them wrapped in the shirt she’d loaned Skye.

She opens her eyes slowly, and the setting sun makes them shine almost golden. She looks down and presses herself closer to Skye, but she doesn’t hide her head again, and when Skye moves them she only marginally tightens her hold on Skye.

“Come on,” Skye says. “Let’s fly.”

It takes Jemma several tries but Skye manages to get her floating on her own only their hands tethering them together, and keeping Jemma in the air.

“How are you doing this?” Jemma asks as she pushes off the grass and into the sky taking Skye up with her. Skye propels them even higher until they’re skimming the tops of the trees.

Skye shrugs. “I just am.”

It doesn’t look like that’s a good enough explanation for her, but Jemma doesn’t push the subject.

“You were covered in flames earlier, why?”

“The faster I go, the more energy I use and it gets let out that way. It can kind of become really intense.”

“Does it hurt?” Jemma asks looking worried.

Skye shakes her head, “No it’s just really warm.”

Jemma nods her head slowly before reaching out to connect their other hands together. She tugs Skye until they’re face to face. “Show me?”

Instead of taking off and taking them over the canyon flying fast and far and dangerous, Skye starts turning them in circles. Slow at first, then faster and faster until Jemma’s hanging on and laughing giddily and Skye’s also laughing. The air gets warmer and warmer, until it ignites and covers them both. Jemma gasps and holds on tighter, but the flames just lick against their skin, warm and playful though that’s only because Jemma is touching Skye.

“Oh,” she says then, and Skye stops them and she feels slightly dizzy but from the way Jemma stays pressed against her she’d say she’s probably feeling dizzier.

The sun has set and Star Dust once again earns it’s name.

Skye takes Jemma up higher and lets the fireflies dance around them.

Jemma lets out another oh, this time more reverent.

“It’s like we’re in space,” Jemma whispers against her ear, and her breath is cool and moist making Skye shiver.

Skye takes them back down eventually feeling drained and kind of sleepy, something that rarely happens.

She lies down on the grass and looks up at the stars and the dancing fireflies and listens to Jemma’s voice as she talks about the constellations and points them out, and tells her about how the simulations for space flight felt nothing like flying with Skye.

Skye closes her eyes and lets her voice wash over her, and she drifts off and sees stars in different positions in the sky.

There’s a soft touch against her forehead and her eyes flutter open, and she looks at Jemma who’s looking down at her and smiling softly. Her eyes look like galaxies and her mouth is dark and distracting.

“Come on,” she says gently taking Skye’s hand and tugging her to her feet. “Let’s go get some sleep.”

—//—

When Jemma opens her eyes that morning at first it seems like any other day.

But when she stumbles into her living room in search for some tea it’s to find Skye sleeping soundly on her pull out.

The sheets have been kicked off the bed and are a tangled mess on the floor. She’s got her arms raised and her shirt’s askew and showing a strip of skin, and Jemma suddenly feels more awake than she’d been a couple of seconds ago.

Jemma never feels attraction this fast never mind the feeling in the pit of her stomach that swarmed through her like a bunch of fireflies making her warm from the inside out when Skye had let out a joyous whoop as she soared high up into the sky.

She makes her tea and toast and gets dressed and Skye doesn’t wake up.

She must’ve tired herself out last night.

Jemma looks at her and remembers the weightlessness and the warmth and the way that Skye’s hair floated around her like if she was underwater when the flames covered them from head to toe, and she remembers how otherworldly she’d looked and how she’d looked right back at Jemma with eyes burning gold and a smile that seemed to be made of starlight.

Jemma brings her hand up to her mouth and worries her thumbnail with her teeth and watches as Skye sleeps and wonders if she’s going to leave once she wakes up.

She may not have said much when they talked yesterday, probably because Jemma dominated the conversation given the fact that she was used to being by herself and speaking out loud to herself but the few times Skye said something it was about another country, and sometimes she’d speak in a different language without even realizing it almost as though she thought they were interchangeable.

Jemma knew several different languages and had no trouble answering or understanding, and Skye didn’t seem to notice.

She hopes that Skye decides to stay a little longer and she can’t hide away from herself the fact that she also hopes that this feeling isn’t one sided and that Skye also wants to stay a little longer.

She has to go down and open the café, but she’s reluctant to leave. She wants to slide in right next to Skye and fall back to sleep and dream about flying with the stars, but she doesn’t.

If she doesn’t open someone will come and make sure that she’s okay, and she doesn’t want to introduce Skye to anyone else yet, not because they’ll find her strange, but because she wants to keep Skye to herself a little bit longer.

Skye twitches in her sleep, but she doesn’t wake up.

Jemma walks carefully out of the room and down the stairs.

She decides to make chocolate chip muffins for Skye since she seemed to enjoy the chocolate dipped crescents the best yesterday.

By the time she’s finished, the entire place smells like chocolate and citrus from the lemon berry tarts, and when she starts the expresso machine she can hear the pipes rattling meaning that Skye woke up and decided to take a shower.

Jemma arranges a plate for Skye full of different types of pastries and she’s getting their drinks ready when the bell rattles and someone steps into the café.

She looks up and smiles when she sees that it’s Fitz and that he’s holding a box that must be the telescope she’d ordered and had delivered to his shop since it was cheaper.

“Thank you,” she says reaching out for the box.

Fitz passes it over smiling brightly. “It came late yesterday, but you ran off somewhere before I could give it to you.”

Jemma doesn’t really feel guilty about keeping running even though she’d heard Fitz calling after her, but she makes the appropriate chastised face and apologizes.

“Who was that girl you were with?” he asks attempting to sound nonchalant but he actually sounded a little jealous and a lot curious.

They got a lot of tourist passing through, but they never came into Jemma’s café because they only passed through to stay at the Star Dust Hotel where they could see the stars without the fireflies floating about, and could eat at the five star restaurant that served everything from French toast to lobster tail.

Any body who wandered out of the hotel and into the actual town was an oddity.

And he probably noticed that Skye was wearing her clothes.

Months ago Jemma might’ve been happy about that note of jealousy. When she’d first moved into town after The Accident, Fitz and his awkward flirting were exactly what she needed after what happened with Will, but months passed and it never moved pass awkward flirting, and years passed and now Fitz was like her best friend.

And while maybe she’d have even been happy about his jealousy yesterday that was all before Skye and the feeling that started in the pit of her stomach and took over when Skye took her flying.

Jemma just shakes her head and smiles blindingly hoping to distract. “No one really, how’re things going over at the shop? Broke any records this week?”

Fitz just leans against the counter, and reaches out. “You’ve got a little bit of flour right here.”

He brushes her cheek, and Jemma flushes and ducks her head down thinking about Skye catching her like that.

She opens her mouth to thank him, but suddenly there is someone rushing out of the store.

“Skye!” Jemma calls out immediately. The bell barely stops jingling before Jemma is out the door as well ignoring Fitz’s call once again.

She can barely see Skye and remembers how fast she can run, and remembers that she can _fly_ and be far away in no time flat.

Jemma hopes that she waits until the cover of the trees to take off and runs after her screaming her name. “Skye! Wait!”

Jemma barely reaches her in time to grab her arm. Skye tugs away from her whirling around.

She’s back in the clothes she was wearing when Jemma first saw her. Jemma had washed them for her, even though she couldn’t understand how Skye wore them and how she managed to put them on, she still looks otherworldly and magical and Jemma feels like if she’s going to wake up and find out that this has all been a dream.

Skye had her from when she opened her door and was inside of her shop looking like she stepped out of a fairy tale, and it has progressively gotten worse to the point that Jemma was afraid that she was going to combust with all of these new and intense feelings.

But she doesn’t say any of that.

“Fitz is like my brother,” Jemma tries to explain instead. She doesn’t want Skye to get the wrong idea about their relationship like everyone does. “And maybe a long time ago I would’ve been happy with more, but he’s my best friend now and besides none of that matters because…”

She trails off and looks away not wanting to actually say anything about how she feels, but the words are right there in her throat wanting to come out.

Skye doesn’t say anything.

Jemma closes her eyes tightly and tries not to think about how she probably got this all wrong and the reason Skye had run out was because she wanted to leave without Jemma causing a scene.

Maybe she knew all about how Jemma felt already. Maybe her abilities included mind reading or she’d been awake when Jemma had just been standing there and watching her sleep like a creep.

Maybe…

It starts to feel warmer, and Jemma’s eyes open involuntarily because Skye runs so hot it’s almost suffocating to be too close, and when she opens her eyes Skye is closer and she’s looking intently at Jemma as though she can actually read her mind with some effort.

Jemma thinks that she stepped closer unconsciously, and she takes a step back and Skye matches her step by step.

Jemma stops moving, and her eyes dart down to Skye’s mouth and she bites down on her lip hard to stop herself from doing something she might regret.

When Skye reaches out for her it’s almost too sudden, and it makes Jemma flinch, but Skye seems to have one goal in mind as she reels Jemma in by her shoulders. Their bodies crash, and when Skye presses her mouth to Jemma’s it’s too hard, and there’s too much teeth, and it feels more like a punch than a kiss, but Skye shudders against her and presses their mouths too hard, and bites down on Jemma’s lip making her gasp and the pain radiates from her mouth sharp and insistent, but Jemma’s too relieved to care about anything else.

Skye pulls back a little and her lips are wet and dark, and when Jemma reels her in for a kiss she makes sure that it’s a proper kiss. She takes full control and holds Skye’s face between her hands and nips against her lips and kisses her with everything that she’s feeling, kisses her soft and tender and soothes the ache from where teeth snag against Skye’s mouth with her tongue making Skye gasp against her mouth and press closer.

She pulls back reluctantly, and watches as Skye’s eyes flutter open, and she presses her fingers against her kiss swollen mouth and looks at Jemma with dazed eyes.

“What was that?” she asks breathlessly.

“That was a kiss,” Jemma says feeling giddy and happy.

“A kiss,” Skye repeats before she’s leaning again and kissing Jemma like Jemma kissed her showing that she’s a fast learner and making Jemma weak in the knees.

She pulls back after several seconds and presses their foreheads together.

Jemma grabs her hands tangling their fingers together and squeezes smiling.

She leans forward and presses their mouths together softly.

“Come on, let’s go home.”

She pulls away and tugs on their joined hands and Skye follows.


End file.
